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The Redskins Played Like Booty and No One Should Be Surprisedhttps://footballisstupid.wordpress.com/2016/09/13/the-redskins-played-like-booty-and-no-one-should-be-surprised/
https://footballisstupid.wordpress.com/2016/09/13/the-redskins-played-like-booty-and-no-one-should-be-surprised/#respondTue, 13 Sep 2016 15:52:27 +0000http://footballisstupid.wordpress.com/?p=375Being negative is a defense mechanism.

There are things to like about the Washington Redskins. Intriguing second year players, the continued growth of their youth, the shiny new free agent acquisitions. That palpable feeling of joy once the air starts to turn crisp and football is being played. It’s hard to stay unhyped and low key, even if you’re the most negative of Nancies. But some fans manage to build that wall, to keep from getting exciting, to use the past experiences to stomp down that indelible hope that creeps into each new season.

It’s not that they want the team to lose. That’d be dumb, why root for a team that you want to lose? It’s that they expect to lose, and would rather be pleasantly surprised when they win or exceed expectations. They hope to win, but guard themselves against what they feel is the inevitable. If they win, great. If they lose, well of course they did.

The Washington Redskins lost last night, and not one bit of it felt surprising. They didn’t even lose in a new, amusing way. This was a team that looked exactly like the team that got embarrassed by the Green Bay Packers, only a year older and with a ton of new expectations that they promptly went about not living up to.

It’s as if nothing changed whatsoever. The Redskins looked like a team that had done precisely nothing to improve, which, when you think about the real big problems on the team from a year ago, they really hadn’t.

The Redskins returned their entire starting offensive line from 2015, apparently assuming that the reasons the run game had been garbage juice was because they’d been without LG Shawn Lauvao for most of the season. They did nothing to address the biggest liability on the line, C Kory Lichtensteiger. Kory had a decent first half of 2014 at center, regressed then spent much of 2015 injured. He then was allowed to come back in the playoffs after Bill Callahan spent an entire season trying to groom Josh LeRibeus into a center, despite the fact that he could neither snap the ball, or remember the snap count. They didn’t address the position in free agency, or in the draft, instead choosing to try and convert Spencer Long (who’s an average guard at best) to center. They also re-signed Josh LeRibeus and had him take snaps at center. When that didn’t work, they tried a 25th hour trade for a center who was about to be cut by the Patriots, who couldn’t beat out an undrafted free agent. The trade was called off when Bryan Stork couldn’t pass a physical.

Bryan Stork would’ve started week 1 at center.

Despite all the proclamations of an improved run game, it looked like a mirror image of last year. The Redskins let veteran running back Alfred Morris walk in free agency, and cut fullback Darrel Young. They did nothing to upgrade their line. They tattooed Matt Jones in at starter, in spite of injury and fumble issues, and then didn’t even address the position in the draft until round 7 when they took Keith Marshall, a talented but injury prone running back out of Georgia. Marshall, naturally, is on IR right now. They didn’t add a veteran back, and instead bulked up at the receiving positions; they spent a 1st round pick on a wide receiver, signed veteran TE Vernon Davis, cut blocking TE Logan Paulsen, and added a bunch of tall undrafted wide receivers. Robert Kelley had a solid preseason, but barely saw the field on Monday, much less the ball.

The Redskins ran the ball 11 times, and their best hope for improvement is a 31 year old player who is currently a free agent.

They counted on OLB Junior Gallette to help with the pass rush while neglecting a week defensive line. Gallette got hurt and they panicked. They re-signed Kedric Golston to be a nose tackle after cutting Terrance Knighton, despite Golston never being a productive defensive end, much less a nose tackle. They let Stephen Paea go a season after giving him decent money, and didn’t draft a d-linemen until round 5. They’re paying Josh Norman $15 million a year to not shadow top receivers and giving him no pass rush, while taking valuable snaps away from Preston Smith (who got close several times but has to learn to finish) to put Trent Murphy on the field. Trent Murphy wouldn’t make most team’s roster, but he’s on the field over the younger player with more potential.

Now they turn to Cullen Jenkins, a 35 year old, to try and actually manufacture a pass rush or ability to stop the run game.

Kirk Cousins showed the frustrating lack of arm strength and accuracy that had fans questioning how he possibly leap frogged his way to the starting job last year. He did not look like a $20 million quarterback, but like the same guy who started in Week 1 versus the Dolphins. His mechanics were out of whack, the stage looked to bright for him, and his desire to get rid of the ball quickly at all cost led to turnovers. Despite having a full offseason as the starter, Cousins was out of sync with his team; in the first half, he and DeSean Jackson weren’t on the same page and he nearly threw an interception on a run pass option. Later, he correctly identified an overload blitz by the Steelers, correctly audibled to the right play…and then instructed Matt Jones to run to the wrong side, against his blockers and into the gaping maw of the defense, which was the whole reason he audibled in the first place.

He locked in on Jordan Reed and rarely came off his primary receiver, things that looked to be behind him late in 2015, but seem to be raging back in 2016. His passes lacked zip, and the poise he exhibited seemed to disappear. The Steelers dropped 8 into coverage and rushed 3, and Cousins was neutered; they neutralized the Redskins passing game, forcing Cousins to hold the ball and get shaky in the pocket, knowing he wasn’t a threat to run. And since the Redskins had no run game (and didn’t even attempt to establish one), it left the game squarely on the shoulders of a QB who could not and did not handle that pressure. Which did not stop the Redskins from having Cousins drop back to pass 43 times.

The same lack of in game adjustments (Norman not being allowed to trail Antonio Brown, the Steelers literally running the same play over and over for big yards), odd game planning (leaving Breeland one on one with Antonio Brown, Reed and Jackson disappearing for long stretches), the lack of balls and lack of solid judgment (passing up a 4th and 1, then going for it on 4th and 6) stupid penalties (including four by veteran offensive linemen and one by a running back somehow), and the same bewildered post game excuse making.

The Redskins had an entire offseason to prepare for this game. Even Mike Shanahan went 3 out of 4 in opening games. Jay Gruden is now 0-3 in Week 1. Kirk Cousins is 0-26 against teams with a winning record. They didn’t just look outplayed; the looked out of their league. The Steelers didn’t take them seriously, and the Redskins did nothing to make them pay for it.

This Redskins team has all the hallmarks of every bad team that accidentally makes the playoffs one year and falls off a cliff the next. There are teams that make the playoffs and then take great strides to take the next step, and then there are the teams who think they’ve got it all figured out, and think they can roll into the next season with the same bag of tricks and walk to a playoff berth. That’s not the case. The division is better this year. The schedule is harder. There are no “cupcake” teams to pad the record against. The expectations are higher and the spotlight is more intense, and the Redskins team that walked into a FedEx Field on Monday Night Football sure looked like a team that was more concerned with playing ping pong and cards in the locker room and giving purple nurples to the coach in the cafeteria than the actual business of, ya know, winning football games.

The Redskins spent the offseason acting like they had it figured out, and then they got curbstomped and embarrassed. That isn’t a sign of a new culture; it’s the old one, given a new paint job and presented as new. There was nothing surprising about the Redskins losing last night, in the fashion they lost. And that is the most infuriating thing in the world.

]]>https://footballisstupid.wordpress.com/2016/09/13/the-redskins-played-like-booty-and-no-one-should-be-surprised/feed/0kcclyburnThe End of Robert Griffin IIIhttps://footballisstupid.wordpress.com/2016/01/14/the-end-of-robert-griffin-iii/
https://footballisstupid.wordpress.com/2016/01/14/the-end-of-robert-griffin-iii/#respondThu, 14 Jan 2016 16:09:21 +0000http://footballisstupid.wordpress.com/?p=343How the hell did we get here?

It’s tough sometimes to think that it was only four years ago that Robert Griffin III was the prince of Washington, DC. There was hardly an athlete more beloved, more revered, and more readily embraced by a fan base desperate for change. For a savior. For someone, anyone to pull them into football relevancy and, perhaps, finally get them back to the promise land.

How did we get from that, to people openly decreeing that they can’t wait until he leaves, and that they hope he takes anyone who dares talk about that electrifying 2012 season with them?

Four years ago, Robert Griffin III left an ACL on the battle ravaged, painted green dirt of FedEx Field. That moment — Griffin, in a heap, while millions at home had been screaming all day for then head coach Mike Shanahan to pull him out — is the moment when everything changed. The moment the savior became fallible, and the selfish sought to cover their own backsides, and the fans began to pin decades of frustration, anger and anguish on him.

You can’t know where you’re going until you know where you’ve been. Griffin’s fall has been recapped over and over, but it always positions him as the architect of his own downfall. He was done in by his own ego, the story goes. He figured that he knew it all, that those around him knew nothing. He was weird, too quiet. He spent too much time in the weight room, not enough in the film room. He was too close to ownership, he was the product of a “gimmick”, flash in the pan offense that he needed to develop out of and yet needs in he’s to have a career going forward.

The blame, it goes, falls squarely on Griffin’s shoulders.

RGIII went from GOAT to goat in four short years. How?

It starts with how he, and the organization, dealt with his ACL injury in the first place. In the immediate aftermath, the question that was asked was simple; “who was to blame?”

Was it head coach Mike Shanahan, who, after the Redskins ran up 14 unanswered points, failed to pull a clearly injured Griffin out of the game while the Seahawks mounted a comeback? Was it Griffin himself, who stubbornly refused to come out of the game, and who had told Trent Williams not to tell Shanahan he was hurt? Was it Dr. James Andrews, who watched on as Griffin struggled and Shanahan seemed to not know how to handle it?

The answer is, as it was then, “yes, to all of it”. It was, as so many things are in Washington, a total organization failure.

But the bigger mess was that no one wanted to accept responsibility. Not the player. Not the coach. Not the doctor. No one.

In a better organization, this controversy would’ve been nipped in the bud. The public relations department would’ve found a way to spin it. The head coach would’ve been made to assume his fair share of the blame, even in the most bland, coach speak terms imaginable. The quarterback would’ve taken his share, and backed his coach.

Instead, the festering feud between Griffin and Shanahan intensified, as neither chose to concede that they’d had a role in the injury. That was the beginning of the end. If Shanahan had become so incensed with Griffin’s relationship with Dan Snyder that he was ready to leave a team in the midst of a playoff run, he sure as hell wasn’t about to take the heat. And when Griffin awoke from surgery and saw the general manager and the owner standing in the room, but not the coach, a young man who seems to pride himself on trust seemed to feel that non-existed between him and Shanahan.

It was the beginning of the end.

—–

An interesting facet to how Griffin’s fall from grace is how his first two seasons in the NFL have been deconstructed and reconstructed to fit a narrative that defies reality, but gets talked about as though it was conventional wisdom.

Griffin won the 2012 Offensive Rookie of the Year with, perhaps, the greatest rookie season from a quarterback ever. His electrifying plays on the field were backed up with his stats. He did things that no other quarterback had done before, and many of which may never be duplicated.

That season has largely been deemed a fluke. A one off. It was not a glimpse of things to come. It was Kyle Shanahan taking Baylor’s offense, putting it in the NFL, and catching everyone off guard. It was a gimmick offense that utilized the best asset Griffin had (in the minds of some people); his legs. Once the league caught up to it and Griffin couldn’t run, that was it. He was done for.

The story that’s told is that Griffin lobbied for changes in the offseason that he was not prepared for. That’s why his 2013 was so wretched and horrible, and ultimately that’s what got Shanahan fired.

…Except that’s wrong on several levels.

Kyle Shanahan didn’t bring Baylor’s offense to the NFL. Quite the opposite, actually. Kyle Shanahan took Chris Ault’s Pistol formation, and the offense he built around it, and grafted the principals of his zone-based West Coast Offense scheme onto them. You’re far more likely to see concepts from Baylor run by Darrell Bevell or Andy Reid than now than if you go back and watch any film from 2012.

And the offense wasn’t a gimmick. The concepts the offense used were just off shoots of things Kyle Shanahan has always run, and runs to this day. The zone-read and options were additional ingredients to a dish that had always been made.

The truth is that Griffin operated an offense that guys like Brian Hoyer and Matt Ryan — quarterbacks considered much more conventional — struggled to comprehend, and he operated it at high level. And he did it more so with his arm than he ever did his legs. Griffin has never been the most dynamic runner. He’s not Michael Vick, he’s not Russell Wilson, he’s not Cam Newton. Griffin’s greatest asset was his straight line speed, not his ability to avoid defenders and make them look silly. If that were the case, his leg wouldn’t have gotten mangled by Haloti Ngata when he awkwardly tried to slide.

He beat teams from the pocket. He didn’t do it in a traditional 3-5-7 step offense, but in the PA, pistol and shotgun based offense, he killed teams. 2012 wasn’t a fluke. It was Kyle Shanahan doing what good coaches do; finding what their players do best, and accentuating it. Griffin posted one of the best rookie seasons ever, and it happened because he was good enough to play in the NFL, and because he was good enough to execute an NFL offense.
****
And then the knee injury happened. And there is not a person on the planet who didn’t agree that Griffin didn’t need to become a “pocket passer” in the more traditional sense.

A lot of that has to do with being a black quarterback who happens to be able to run in a league that historically demands that any and all quarterbacks conform to their antiquated, long held belief in the pocket passer. No matter how many quarterbacks seem to die in the pocket, it is believed that eventually, you have to excel there to be a “real” quarterback in the NFL.

Much of Griffin’s desire to become a pocket passer seemed to be bourn from that outside pressure. Some of it came from the mistrust that had developed after Griffin injured his leg, and the Shanahan’s insisted on still utilizing his running ability.
It’s only natural for black quarterbacks to not want to be put in the “running quarterback” lane. That is what plagued Donovan McNabb for so long; he wished to take the running facet out of his game, to prove he could hang out of the pocket. Quarterbacks like Michael Vick were redeemed when they seemed to master the ability of staying in the pocket to get sacked like all good QB’s do.

Russell Wilson’s ability to scramble has saved the Seahawks’ numerous time, but the most positive press he’s gotten in recent years has been the December hot streak he had in 2015, where he functioned as a much more “traditional” quarterback. Cam Newton’s MVP candidacy has more or less hinged on whether or not you believe his ability to run is an asset or a crutch. Colin Kaepernick is likely out in San Francisco, after they unsuccessfully signed a bunch of wide receivers and tried to turn him into a pocket passer.

In recent years, quarterbacks like Teddy Bridgewater and Geno Smith have been praised for “being able to run, but not having to”, because, again, be able to run is considered a crutch for black quarterbacks. (Ironically, someone like Jameis Winston gets dinged for not being “athletic” or enough a gym rat, despite being able to run about as well as his white contemporaries)

All this is what makes it so weird that, four years later, people have taken to chastising Griffin for not wanting to run the offense he ran in 2012.
“He’s got to find a coach and a staff that will somehow convince him that the way he played in 2012 is the best way for him to play,” Kevin Sheehan of ESPN 980 said. “And maybe he realizes that now. You still have many teams around the league that have a lot of that incorporated in their offense. Some of those teams are still alive. He’s got to find that team. If he’s going to find a team that says hey, I think I can develop you into a drop-back passer but you’re going to have to sit behind this guy for a couple years, I don’t think it will happen for him.”

It’s curious, how the narrative shifted from “Griffin must be a pocket passer to succeed” to “Griffin must find a coach who will use him like he was used in 2012”. It suggests that Griffin’s biggest problem was trying to conform, after being shouted at for the better part of 3 years for not conforming.

It suggests that Griffin really can’t win. If he wants to be a drop back passer, he will get dinged for not realizing his limitations. (I.e that all he’s good at is running.) If he finds somewhere that runs an offense more like the 2012 version, he’ll be dinged for going back into a gimmick offense instead of learning how to properly play the position.

As if often the case with black quarterbacks, there is no real winning.

***

Griffin’s 2013 wasn’t as bad as anyone would have you believe.

Granted, it wasn’t good. But in someways, it was absurd to think that Griffin could duplicate the success of 2012 — which, again, was probably the best season for a rookie quarterback in NFL history — all while recovering from ACL surgery and learning how to play the game in a different way.

Part of that was Griffin’s fault. Griffin not-so-famously lived off his endorsement deals, while putting his NFL paychecks into the bank. That led to a deluge of offseason commercial deals. The now infamous “All In For Week 1” campaign was a doomed idea from the beginning, as it set an unreal precedent. There was no way Griffin could be fully healthy in that amount of time, and even if he had, there would be no significant time for him to spend an offseason in what was functionally a new offense.

He pushed to become a pocket passer, though, mostly through his father. Those two things, plus a meddlesome owner, put the Shanahans in a bind, a bind that was only made worse buy that whole “no one wants to take responsibility for ‘breaking the franchise quarterback'” thing.
Lying underneath all that was a team — or more over, a group of Shanahan loyal players — who bristled over the idea that RGIII had been the sole reason for the team’s 2012 turn around. Granted; he kind of was. But the team rarely got recognized for their efforts in winning the division, and the constant public in-fighting between coach and quarterback started to wear them out.

If the task of replicating an historic first season wasn’t hard enough, Griffin wasn’t cleared to practice with the team until very late in camp. By the time he was cleared, Shanahan had declared that he would not play in any of the team’s four preseason games.

A young quarterback, coming off his second ACL surgery, trying to learn a new way of playing, with a head coach who was fed up with him, an offensive coordinator who was caught in the middle, an overbearing owner gassing him up, and a rabid fanbase that was ready to repeat as division champions. It was a recipe for disaster from the start.

…Which makes it all the weirder that Griffin was merely “okay” in 2013.

Again, he had some truly awful games. His last four games played, which included two primetime games, were particularly bad, as he completed 57.8 percent of his passes, with 4 TDs and 3 INTs, with a passer rating of 77.5. Versus the Kansas City Chiefs, on a snowy field, Griffin looked as though he’d forgotten how to play the position altogether, missing wide open receivers and seeming timid, as though he was afraid to slip in the snow on his repaired ACL.

But before that terrible four game stretch…Griffin played okay. Not up to the level he had previously, but okay. Granted, the first two games of his season were helped by some late game stat padding…but from there, he looked to be having an average-ish year.

An overturned touchdown versus Detroit seemed to be the difference in a game where everyone though he was rounding back into form. He had decent first half outings versus Dallas and Denver before falling off in the second half. He played well enough to win in Oakland, and pretty very well against both Chicago and San Diego that year; all three of those were wins. He played very well versus Minnesota and the Redskins had a chance to tie the game and send it to overtime, but couldn’t convert.
His twelve touchdowns and nine interceptions, 60% completion and 83.8 passer rating over that nine game stretch were certainly nothing to write home about…but he wasn’t terrible. In fact, it seemed he was having a fairly typical sophomore slump. The four game drop off was really, really bad, and the Kansas City game was abysmal.

But the idea that his 2013 season was the beginning of the end just doesn’t hold water. If anything, he had a rookie season, only slightly delayed. He looked, for all intents and purposes, like a young quarterback, adjusting to the complexities of the league. They even had a chance versus the Giants during that four game stretch.

But it didn’t matter. By then, the writing was on the wall. Shanahan was out, and he needed to save face. And so he benched Griffin, to “protect his health”, and started Kirk Cousins in his place.

The Redskins lost the last four games of the season. Griffin was a convenient scapegoat; he’d become overexposed throughout the season, and very easy to hate. His use of social media to air his grievances was grating, his press conferences seemed less charming and more aloof. He bought a healthy amount of criticism on himself.

But 2013 was about a lot more than Griffin. With the salary cap restrictions in full effect, the team couldn’t afford to upgrade through free agency. Instead, they retained as many players as possible from the 2012 season, most of whom were marginal starters that got caught in a hot streak. London Fletcher was re-signed, despite his arrow trending down. The offensive line wasn’t upgraded, and struggled to pass protect. Jim Haslett’s defense was flat. The Redskins had seven draft selections in 2013; only two of them remain on the team in 2015.

The behind the scenes turmoil, combined with a team that didn’t improve from the year before, had far more to do with the Redskins falling off than just Griffin’s poor play.

But the damage had been done. And Mike Shanahan’s brilliant damage control in the two years after have positioned him as an innocent bystander who’s team was ruined not by his inability to build a solid roster despite personnel control, or by his unwillingness to part with the yes men he kept on the staff, or just plain old NFL parity.

Shanahan has done a great job framing Robert as everything that is wrong with the Redskins. An idea far too many fans latched on to, as animosity and frustration to Griffin grew to be too much.

****

All this isn’t to make Griffin out to be some poor, misunderstood saint. He has undoubtedly made missteps. His ego at times has grown too big. His self-awareness has seemed too small. Many times I have screamed for him to simply put down Twitter (there’s the pot calling the kettle black) and not allow the outside word to bother him.

He’s a self-described loner in a sport that preaches team over everything. If he played basketball, or stayed in track, or even played a sport like baseball, him being an individual would be fine. But being a loner in an NFL locker room is a difficult task, especially if you’re the quarterback, and especially if you’re the quarterback and the owner takes a liking to you.

Griffin fell too deep into the marketing of his image, of his shoes, of creating catchphrases and mottos, all without being able to see that sometimes, you need to step back and allow that stuff to fall to the way side.

He was, at times, too forthcoming with information, to a media culture that is driven completely and utterly by the quest for clicks. And in some ways, him being so newsworthy is why the media — particularly local media — seemed to turn on him as well. The reason why coverage seemed lighter for Cousins was because Cousins was easier to deal with. He was less controversial, less likely to say a thing that had everyone talking and Twitter feeds exploding. His greatest asset was being able to give everyone a unique answer, when sometimes, the best answer was no answer.
Which is crazy in a media culture that demands less canned responses and more personalities. But, those are the rules.

The NFL doesn’t know how to handle “different”, and Griffin was certainly different. A lot of where his career currently is can be placed on his shoulders.

But just as much can be placed on everything around him. It can be placed on the fans who christened him the chosen one before he was even drafted. People lined convention center floors to get his autograph well before the Redskins made the blockbuster trade to move up to get him. Those same fans helped inflate the ego. It was thought Griffin could do no wrong. And for a while, he couldn’t. He was THE MAN before he was actually “the man”.

It can be placed on Daniel Snyder, who can’t seem to help but get involved with his star players. Maybe it’s the fact that Snyder is still a fan at heart, or maybe it’s because Dan couldn’t leave well enough alone. But he undoubtedly crossed lines; he once berated Kyle Shanahan for not opening up the offense enough for Griffin. He had Thanksgiving dinner with Griffin, which, on one hand, isn’t a big deal, but on the other, created more animosity and tension between coach and quarterback. More over, he went full steam ahead with marketing Griffin as aggressively as possible. And when Griffin’s media image got too big, he didn’t reign it in, and he didn’t empower the coach to reign it in.

It can certainly be placed on the Shanahans. Kyle Shanahan is, was, and probably always will be high strung. Even with a franchise caliber quarterback in Matt Ryan and the games’ best receiver in Julio Jones, he still can’t help but rub people the wrong way. His inability to put his ego aside leads to him not being willing to truly adapt, and he’s got a bizarre sense of entitlement.

And Mike Shanahan. The second Mike Shanahan felt Griffin becoming a bigger part of the organization than he was, was the second he started planning his escape. He’s gone out of his way to insist that he never wanted anything to do with Griffin, which is a lie wrapped up in half-truths. He may not have wanted to give up the entire farm for Griffin, but he was certainly willing to part with the barn and a few cattle. Watch any old pre-2012 NFL Draft interview footage, and you will not see a man who is being forced by ownership to take a quarterback he has no faith in. You will see Shanahan smiling, and practically giddy at the thought of drafting Griffin. Shanahan did not fly to Baylor and watch Griffin work personally and have dinner with him after the work out because he didn’t want to draft RGIII.

At some point, someone had to step up and be the adult and take some sort of responsibility. But no one did. Shanahan’s pitch to teams looking for new head coaches this year is “I’m the guy who drafted Kirk Cousins, by the way, I never wanted that RGIII guy”. That idea has been solidified by a media culture who fatigued of having to deal with Griffin (and who grew tired of a national media wondering why they weren’t asking tougher questions), and was bought as gospel by fans who had been hurt one too many times. And some of whom — not all, but some — who weren’t altogether thrilled with the idea of a black quarterback who could run to begin with.

Griffin is certainly a big part of the reason why he won’t be in Washington next year. (Probably.) But a whole lot of people helped get us here. That much is for sure.

****
Jay Gruden started looking to save his own ass more or less the second he saw Griffin.

Gruden was bought in to be the guy to “fix” RGIII. He’d been credited with developing Andy Dalton into a Pro Bowl quarterback, and despite Dalton’s hiccups, he was whispered about as a “quarterback guru”, at least as far as TV media goes.
There were a few more voices that expressed that Gruden wasn’t held in the highest regards league wide, and Bengals fans certainly weren’t dreading losing the guy. Some questioned if Griffin could be a fit in Gruden’s offense, but Gruden had come in and stated that if there were things Griffin was uncomfortable with, they wouldn’t run those things, and he’d build his offense around the talent he had.

So it’s a bit curious that Gruden seemed frustrated that he couldn’t move to start Cousins. And even curiouser that he seemed to lobby for Colt McCoy to start. All before the first preseason game.

RGIII was raw. Hell, is raw. And despite it all, he’d still never really played in a conventional, drop back system in the NFL. Conventional wisdom was that a West Coast Offense takes three years to master. Griffin had been in a version of one that heavily utilized play action and augmented some of the footwork by placing him in the pistol. Him adjusting to the new offense should’ve been expected.

But in the NFL, a coach rarely gets three years to wait around and see if a guy improves. And so Gruden tried making a self-preservation move, moves that were shot down by ownership and a far-too-powerful Bruce Allen.

Griffin barely played in the preseason that year, getting only a handful of snaps in the first two exhibition games, and then getting a truncated appearance in the “dress rehearsal” game, a game wherein he looked decidedly uncomfortable.

Griffin played a mediocre game versus the Texans. Versus the moribound Jags, he got off to a fantastic start, but went down to an ankle injury.

Cousins entered the game and played well. The following week, Cousins played well again in a loss to the Eagles. And almost immediately, the rumors began circulating that, if Cousins continued to play well, the job of starting quarterback was all but his to take.

Jay Gruden never gave Robert Griffin III much of a chance. Maybe he figured Griffin was a lost cause. Maybe the locker room really had turned on RGIII, and he was a man on an island. Maybe Cousins was really that much better a quarterback. But Gruden had zero investment in trying to make Griffin better, or in trying to forge a connection with his quarterback. He instead tried to protect his own hide by moving on to Cousins, and then essentially begging him to take over.

RGIII was left to develop with a head coach who seemed to not want him (again), a first time offensive coordinator who’d spent much of his NFL career coaching tight ends, and no quarterback coach. It’s no wonder Cousins looked better in shorts.

But that didn’t translate to games. Cousins wilted under the pressure of being a starter, going 1-4. His lone “win” came in a game he didn’t finish, as he was benched for Colt McCoy versus the Tennessee Titans, in a game where Cousins seemed to lack confidence.

McCoy got the team over the hump by defeating the Cowboys on a Monday Night, before the teams handed the reigns back over to Griffin versus the Minnesota Vikings. And in that game, you could still see the potential there. He was far from perfect, but he was still okay, completing 64% of his passes with a touchdown and interception. Far less impressive was the Redskins defense, which squandered a first half lead to give way to a big second half comeback from the rookie Teddy Bridgewater.

But the next two starts for Griffin were abysmal. Griffin looked as though he’d never played the position before. There were no flashes of “good RGIII”, only the one that everyone had made him out to be; completely incapable of running an NFL offense that didn’t rely on his legs.

Griffin got benched for Colt McCoy. He returned and played a mediocre game versus the Giants, and managed a win versus the Eagles to knock them out of the playoffs, before losing at home to the Cowboys, the team he’d beaten to win the NFC East Division Championship just two years before.

Griffin certainly didn’t do himself any favors in 2014 when it came to locking down the starting job. But, lost in all the mire of Griffin’s bad season; all the quarterbacks played poorly. Cousins looked to be the best fit for Gruden, but his confidence issues worsened as his starts when on and Griffin got closer to returning after his injury. Colt McCoy was the most well-versed, but he’s Colt McCoy.

Not having a quarterback coach to manage the room and really develop any of the quarterbacks hurt, but it hurt no one more than Griffin, who needed it more than either McCoy or Cousins. In addition, Griffin had lobbied to have Andre Roberts signed, and was one of the key figures to bring DeSean Jackson to Washington. Once again, he’d set himself up for a fall, and yet again, there was no one in the organization that could catch him.

2014 was really the beginning of the end. It was clear that Griffin wasn’t going to be around long with Jay Gruden, or Jay Gruden wouldn’t be around long with RGIII.
Or at least that’s how it seemed.

*****
If Gruden learned anything from Mike Shanahan, it was to pin as much of the team’s failures on Griffin as possible.
Jay Gruden concluded that season stating that he wanted an open competition between all three quarterbacks to become the starter. The Redskins demoted-by-promoting general manager Bruce Allen and hired Scot McCloughan, a guy with a trouble past but a talent for roster building.

Not long after McCloughan was hired, the Redskins chose to extend Griffin’s 5th year option.

Where things get fuzzy is in who’s decision was. The easiest thing to suggest is that Dan Snyder, meddlesome as ever, forced the decision on McCloughan and Gruden. A suggestion that makes little sense, as one imagines McCloughan wouldn’t have taken the job if he could be so easily forced to do something by Snyder.

So here’s my theory. Dan Snyder, obviously, had a lot invested in Griffin from a business standpoint, and from a personal standpoint, wanted Griffin to get one more chance. From a football standpoint, McCloughan saw a young kid who had struggled early on in his career, not unlike the quarterback he’d drafted in San Francisco, Alex Smith, but none the less had great potential.

The fifth year option was, in effect, an offer of good faith, a way to get Griffin to buy in and trust people in the organization again, to give him a little something to fight for.

It was a situation that probably put Gruden in a bit of a bind, since he really did want to given Cousins and McCoy a shot. Never the less, Gruden went along with it, because he didn’t have a choice. To a locker room that at various points the previous season had rallied around both Kirk Cousins and Colt McCoy, it probably looked like more coddling from ownership than anything.

Griffin opened training camp in 2015 as the starter. And the initial reports out of Richmond were that Griffin looked much more comfortable in 2015 than he had in 2014. Those training camp reports weren’t effusive in their praise, but it was hard not to read most of them as positive, especially from a guy who’d gotten benched for Colt McCoy the year before.

And those some reports often painted Kirk Cousins as a guy who was locked in a battle for the number two spot. In fact, at some points it seemed Cousins was struggling so hard that he might not even make the roster as the number three quarterback. Being locked in a genuine battle with Colt McCoy would make anyone seem expendable.

The first preseason game didn’t feature many impressive plays from Griffin, but he was able to drive the team into the red zone with some good decisions. (He also took a dumb, unnecessary hit on a third down scramble). Cousins showed out against 2nd and 3rd teamers, and it seemed like a QB controversy was ready to brew all over again.

The second preseason game versus the Lions is the one where everything went south. The one where “Robert Griffin III; Redskins franchise quarterback” died. The one that everything most people feel about Jay Gruden on either side hinges on.

Griffin was massacred in the game. He was hit relentlessly by the Lions, sacked numerous times.

Watching at home, it was a complete horror show. It was merciless.

And Gruden never considered taking Griffin out of a preseason game, a game where nothing of value was on the line, a game where the offensive line played so poorly there was no game film that could be extracted as a learning experience. It wasn’t some evil plot by a mad coach trying to get a quarterback hurt; it was a neglectful coach, who wasn’t enamored with Griffin and didn’t see the value of pulling him when it counted most.

Nothing was done to alleviate the rush. No screens, no rollouts, no bootlegs, not the token read-option to back an aggresive defense off. The argument was that Griffin had to be left in the game to learn, that he had to stay in the game and in the pocket, facing long down and distances. The argument was that Griffin was fine on bootlegs and roll-outs; he needed to learn to play in the pocket, and that was a justification for, essentially, leaving him to die.

Griffin finally left the game with a head injury. Joe Theisman would later report that Griffin did not have a concussion; after the game, Gruden would say that he did.

One of Colt McCoy’s first pass attempts versus most of the Lions starters? A play action bootleg.

Gruden would name Cousins the starter for the team’s third preseason game, and eventually, he’d name him starter for the entire season. Griffin never attempted another pass in a Redskins uniform, and probably never will.

***
They keep asking me why I can’t get over it. Why can’t I move on. I’m an RGIII apologist. I care about him more than the team. I carry a personal vendetta because of how Gruden handled RGIII.

“Can’t you get over it? Griffin is no good. He can’t play in the NFL. Cousins is the future, why can’t you see that? Move on. In 2012 he played in a gimmick offense. Move on. You’re happy to see the team lose just so you can be right about Griffin. Move on, get over it.”

I sit here, having written nearly 6000 words on his time in DC, trying to see if this will be the thing that gets me, as they say, “move on”. Even as I tried to celebrate winning the division, there was a thing that nagged a gnawed at me, a thing that I can’t get over.

Cousins was given three opportunities to claim the starter spot. The first time, Mike Shanahan benched RGIII to prove a point, and Cousins lost every start. That was excused by saying that the team had already quit on him. The second time, Gruden tried to hand him the keys again, but his confidence was so rattled and his paranoia about Griffin breathing down his neck was so bad, he ended up getting benched. Despite seeming to struggle during camp and shining against back-ups in preseason, Cousins was given a third chance to start. And, had Cousins not made a miraculous comeback versus the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, instead of screaming “YOU LIKE THAT!”, we’d all probably be watching Colt McCoy start a game.

This isn’t to suggest RGIII wasn’t handed the reigns. But it seems that Griffin’s struggles were met with scorn, anger, and dismissal of his raw talent, while Cousins’ struggles were pardoned, excused, and otherwise supported.

When RGIII had a bad game in 2014, Gruden ethered him. He emasculated him in a fashion that had not been seen by many people. And Gruden never really had to answer for doing so, at least not on a local level. When Cousins had a bad game, it was hard to hear Gruden take it easy on Cousins.

You could say “Well he learned from his mistakes”, but it seemed that Gruden still had no problem throwing the occasional barb at other players.

The reason the I, and many others, have yet to “get over it”, is because we’re constantly reminded of how dumb it is to have believed in him. There’s a healthy chunk of fans and media who act as though expecting more out of Griffin is insane. They’ve retroactively made Griffin out to be a bust from the start, who only succeeded because he caught everyone by surprise.

Griffin made the Washington Redskins culturally relevant again. Not just relevant in football, but culturally relevant, as in the Redskins were important enough to be acknowledged not as a walking, talking punchline, but as a viable football franchise that was going places. Even the name debate became a national topic of conversation because Griffin made the team impossible to ignore.
And for African-American fans, the sight of a black quarterback succeeding at a high level, in a league that so often throws guys that look and play like him away, for their football team, was gratifying in ways that are impossible to quantify.

That’s all gone now. 2012 is gone. Griffin’s locker has been cleaned out. Unless Dan throws a Hail Mary and decides to throw himself on the sword to keep him, Griffin will be in a different uniform next season.

And why? Because of a single torn ACL? Was that enough to throw the franchise back into chaos? Were the Redskins such a shoddy organization that an injury that dozens of football players come back from and play well for the team after could send us into turmoil?

Is past is prologue, what does happened say about us now, and where we go from here. Cousins stands to make a ton of money going forward. But if he struggles, will he be so readily discarded for the next guy? Or will he be clung to, and defended until it ends.

It shouldn’t have ended this way. That, I think, is what makes this all hard to get over. In 2012, at long live last, it felt like anything was possible for the Redskins. That playoff wins and NFC Championships and Super Bowls were once again in sight, that the glory days were here, that the team had finally found a direction and a captain that could steer us back to the promise land.

Now, four short years later, in the dead of winter, those of us who choose to remember that feeling, are laid bare on the turf, clutching at figurative ACL’s, wondering if we’ll ever recover from this injury like the last one.

Sorry, people. I can’t over it. I can’t move on.

And it’s hard to imagine I ever will.

]]>https://footballisstupid.wordpress.com/2016/01/14/the-end-of-robert-griffin-iii/feed/0kcclyburnKirk Cousins Is Slowly Improving, But Needs to Get To Play With Swagger to Take the Next Stephttps://footballisstupid.wordpress.com/2015/11/11/kirk-cousins-is-slowly-improving-but-needs-to-get-to-play-with-swagger-to-take-the-next-step/
https://footballisstupid.wordpress.com/2015/11/11/kirk-cousins-is-slowly-improving-but-needs-to-get-to-play-with-swagger-to-take-the-next-step/#respondWed, 11 Nov 2015 15:03:17 +0000http://footballisstupid.wordpress.com/?p=295Here’s a thing that you never thought you’d hear from me; I think Kirk Cousins has played pretty well the last couple weeks.

He still has his moments where you’d rather punt him into the sun than have him quarterback the team, but there has been a slow but steady uptick in his overall play during the course of the season. He’s (generally) been more accurate, his throws (generally) have had a little more umph, and all told, when Cousins gets it going, he looks like a capable NFL starter.

That’s not to say the Redskins shouldn’t look to upgrade the position, or give Cousins a big fat extension to keep him around. All it means is that Cousins is playing at an acceptable level, and isn’t entirely the reason the Redskins lost in last week’s match-up versus the Patriots, and that one hopes he keeps it up over the back half of the season.

With Rex Grossman (the guy Kirk Cousins gets most often compared to), the story was always whether Good Rex or Bad Rex would show up. Sometimes Good Rex would show up in the first, then Bad Rex would show up in the second. Sometimes it was vice versa. Sometimes they could happen on back-to-back drives.

With Cousins, I’m not sure there is a “Good Kirk” and a “Bad Kirk” as much as there’s a Swaggy Kirk and a Unconfident Kirk.

When Kirk is feeling it and things are going his way, he’s more than capable of throwing darts and leading last second comebacks. When the game starts to get away from him, he faulters, his play drops off, and the team around him isn’t good enough to elevate him back to a decent level.

Take, again, Sunday’s game versus the Patriots. Cousins first throw was a laser that bounced off Garcon’s hands and was intercepted. Still, Cousins came back on the second drive and did a great job of manipulating the pocket, stepping up and laying in a beauty to Derek Carrier…that was promptly dropped. Cousins came back with a throw short of the sticks that was dropped by Reed.

As the points piled on and the drops added up, Cousins didn’t press. He didn’t take unnecessary chances to get back in the game, as he might’ve last season. But you could see it in his play that, as the team struggled to succeed on the routine plays, his confidence wavered, and he did not have as good a second half as he did in the first.

Cousins seems to get into his own head too often, which makes him less risk averse. That’s only compounded by two things; an offensive scheme that encourages not taking chances, and the background noise of people who flip out when he makes a mistake.

One has to remember that Cousins was put in a bad position by head coach Jay Gruden from the start. After Gruden annihilated RGIII last season, it was only natural that the guy he kept picking to start was going to face intense scrutiny, and it didn’t help when Gruden seemed to go out of his way to avoid critiquing Cousins fairly.

It painted a picture of inequity between the two, pitted the two teammates against each other, and gave off the impression that Gruden was doing so because Cousins couldn’t suffer the slings and arrows the way RGIII could.

In reality, all it did was create two quarterbacks terrified of making a mistake, less they have to answer to a divided fanbase and story starved media.

Now, Cousins is the unquestioned starter, and RGIII is on the bench. The chances RGIII starts a game this year barring an injury are basically nil. (This is despite it being an actual talking point that Cousins is playing poorly — which he really isn’t, BTW — because he’s scared RGIII will play. Because RGIII is the root of all evil and steals candy from babies.)

But Cousins isn’t showing the confidence in himself to step up and take those next level plays, still playing like he’s a back-up. His Yards-Per-Attempt is still an abysmal 6.3; his adjusted yards-per-attempt stands at 5.7.

Again, part of that is a scheme devised by Jay Gruden and Sean McVay that more or less demands not taking chances. It’s not that the scheme doesn’t get guys open for bigger plays; it’s that the spent the entirety of the offseason and training camp telling their quarterbacks that they…well, that they had to be ordinary. That they didn’t have to play hero ball, to get the ball out of their hands quickly and move on to the next play.

Cousins has done that; his quick delivery is part of the reason the Redskins have only given up eight sacks on the season. But it’s also part of the reason that the offense produces few big plays and why teams can more or less sell out to stop the run first. The chances of getting beat deep with this group of receivers aren’t very high. Teams will give up those shallow crossing routes, screens to wide receivers and checkdowns to running backs all day. It gives the appearance that the offense is “moving”, but just because yards are getting gained, doesn’t mean the passing game is productive. (As evidence by the fact that Redskins currently rank 28th in points-per-game.)

Now, Gruden is extolling the virtue of improvising, of Cousins taking those chances and not being scared of making a mistake. Saying this after you essentially build a scheme around not doing so is funny and puts the burden on Cousins for not making bigger plays, which is the kind of slight passing-of-the-buck that Jay has become so, so good at.

But he’s not entirely wrong. Now, when Cousins does improvise (such as the drop by Carrier), people have to catch the ball. But even within the course of a game, Cousins could do so much better.

Take for example, DeSean Jackson. Jackson is quickly becoming the scapegoat for a lost season, because RGIII is benched and Alfred Morris is non-existent and Jordan Reed is healthy and playing again, so “DeSean Jackson” is next on the list of offensive players to get miffed at.

Jackson can be a frustrating guy because he’s not going to get all his yardage the dirty way someone like Pierre Garcon does. He’s not really a screen or shallow cross guys; he’s going to make his plays in the intermediate and deep levels of the field, the two places Cousins has struggled to make plays.

Jackson got knocked for some out of context quotes after the game, but there were a couple times where Cousins could’ve taken a shot for the big play receiver and didn’t. The old adage with a guy like Cousins is “if he’s even, he’s leavin’.” Facing a third and ten in a game that was getting away from them, Cousins chose a 2 yard out to Jamieson Crowder over taking a shot deep to DeSean Jackson, who was even with Malcolm Butler. Even giving D-Jax a shot to pull that ball down is better than a two yard route that won’t get you what you the first.

But that’s sort of been Cousins’ MO. Several times this season, the Redskins have managed to scheme a receiver open deep, only for Cousins to short arm the throw. It’s not that he can’t throw deep; Cousins has more than enough functional arm strength to throw vertically down the field (it’s in those intermediate routes in the middle of the field where his lack of arm talent starts to show up); it’s Cousins playing it safe, trying to complete the pass instead of just letting it rip.

Or, it’s Cousins taking a checkdown or route short of the sticks just to get the ball out instead of taking his time and trying to make a bigger play down the field.

“Get the ball out quickly and keep the chains moving” seems to have been a coaching point that was drilled over and over in Cousins head, and now, it’s adversely effecting his ability to play fast and throw with confidence.

And who knows; maybe Cousins taking those chances would result in more turnovers, and we’d all bemoan how he wasn’t playing smart. But I’d argue that a bigger issue fans have with Cousins than just the turnovers, is his reaction to them. There was a time when people would get frustrated that interceptions never seemed to bother Rex Grossman. But in some ways, that was Grossman’s biggest strength; he accepted turnovers as part of the game (albeit too big of one for him), and had full confidence in himself to go play at a high level.

That is the step Cousins must take next; to not just take the chances, but to realize that even the best quarterbacks make crap throws. The difference is whether or not you allow those early mistakes to pile up, or whether you learn from them and don’t keep making the same mistakes over and over.

Cousins needs some more pep in his step and to play with less fear. The worst that could happen is that Washington benches him, at which point he’d still probably have his pick of teams that would sign him to a good deal to be a back-up and maybe compete for a starting job.

Be more swaggy, Kirk. It can’t possibly hurt. Suffice it to say, if it paid off, I think we’d all like that.

]]>https://footballisstupid.wordpress.com/2015/11/11/kirk-cousins-is-slowly-improving-but-needs-to-get-to-play-with-swagger-to-take-the-next-step/feed/0ikcclyburnThe Excuses Made For Kirk Cousins Starting For The #Redskins Are Bulls**t. Here’s Why.https://footballisstupid.wordpress.com/2015/10/22/the-excuses-made-for-kirk-cousins-starting-for-the-redskins-are-bullst-heres-why/
https://footballisstupid.wordpress.com/2015/10/22/the-excuses-made-for-kirk-cousins-starting-for-the-redskins-are-bullst-heres-why/#respondThu, 22 Oct 2015 19:22:30 +0000http://footballisstupid.wordpress.com/?p=289Let’s just go through all the excuses that have been made for Kirk Cousins this week and explain why none of them make any sense whatsoever.

1.) Kirk Cousins is the best option on this team.

Okay, why? Kirk Cousins is 21 games into his NFL career, and now the entire country is starting to wonder how Cousins is the best option on the team.

He doesn’t have RG3’s arm or his mobility. He doesn’t have Colt’s experience or his knowledge of the WCO. His pocket presense is bad, his footwork is poor.

His passer rating is 31st in the NFL. He’s the only quarterback in the NFL with more than 8 INTs and 230 or fewer passes this year; he was the only person with that many INTs on 230 or fewer passes last year.

Cousins has now thrown 27 career interceptions, and he’s done it in 196 less attempts than Colt McCoy. Blaine Gabbert and JaMarcus Russell have both thrown less interceptions in more pass attempts.

How, exactly, does that make “Cousins” the best option for anything?

2.) Robert Griffin III couldn’t function in the offense.

At this point, the ship on RGIII has sailed. Bringing up RGIII in defense of Kirk Cousins doesn’t highlight anything other than a fundamental lack of an argument on the part of the person bringing it up.

But let’s play along for a second here. Everyone brings up the Tampa Bay and San Francisco games as proof positive that RGIII can’t functionally play quarterback, as though those were the only games he played.

Yes, those games were profoundly terrible, and RGIII looked completely out of his wits in both.

But only bringing up those two games conveniently ignores that he play okay football in the rest of his appearance; following his injury, he played a solid game versus Minnesota, a game where the defense choked away a late lead to lose. Griffin got benched, but came in relief of Colt McCoy versus the Giants and again showed well — not outstanding, mind you, but well enough. He then managed the game effectively versus the Eagles to knock them out of the playoffs, before finishing with a not great game versus the Cowboys.

For all the talk about how Cousins deserves time, 2014 was Griffin’s first year in a rigid WCO offense. Cousins now has more starts in Jay Gruden’s offense than Griffin did, and he’s gotten progressively worse, while Griffin, while not necessarily showing huge leaps, at least flashed some of the talent that he had. In training camp in 2015, he was regularly praised for his practices, and he showed well in the first preseason game, before the Lions game imploded and Jay Gruden saw an easy way to backdoor Cousins into the starting job that didn’t involve them actually competing.

The chances Griffin ever starts for the burgundy and gold again are pretty much slim and none, but the idea that he was so terrible that he Cousins was the obvious better choice is very,very flawed.

3.) Kirk Cousins needs time to grow and develop so the Redskins know what they have in him.

35 games into Griffin’s career, it might very well be over for him unless he catches on with a team that caters him. Colt McCoy made it to 33 appearances before people deemed him unworthy of starting; Cousins would have to play in 13 more games to reach that mark, despite playing demonstrably worse.

Follow Sunday’s game, Cousins will have officially started 16 games, an entire’s seasons worthy of film. Cousins hasn’t shown any sort of marked improvement over the course of these starts; in fact, in consecutive seasons, his plays has worsened over the course of his starts. How many more games is it going to take to know exactly what Cousins is?

Cousins also isn’t a spring chicken. He’s 27; he’s only 2 years younger than Colt McCoy. And over the course of all his appearances and starts, the same issues continue to manifest over and over, without fail; in fact, many of those issues have gotten worse, not just over the course of games, but seasons.

It’s difficult to say that Cousins deserves every opportunity in the world to improve on what appear to be unfixable issues, but RGIII and McCoy have already been figured out and shouldn’t touch the field.

4.) Kirk Cousins is the best fit for Jay Gruden’s offense.

Whatever Jay Gruden is running right now, it’s not “his offense”. What they’re running now is the most bog standard, beginner’s course level “West Coast Offense” in pro football, an offense completely with it’s own set of training wheels to ensure that Cousins doesn’t goof up. (Note: He still does goof up.)

It’s part of what makes Jay Gruden’s continued defense of Cousins so grating; his playcalling suggests he has no confidence in Kirk’s ability to play the position. Of Cousins 228 pass attempts, only 19 have traveled more than 20 yards downfield — only 3 have been completed.

The offense right now consists of hitches, curls, slants, and other short routes, checkdowns and dump downs; high percentage throws. The idea is to get the ball out of Cousins hands as quickly as possible, which works in as much as Cousins doesn’t take as many sacks…

If you’re going to have an offense predicated entirely on safe, short routes, you really need guys who can get YAC. The Redskins do have guys capable of getting YAC — Pierre Garcon, Jordan Reed (when healthy), Jamison Crowder, even guys like Ryan Grant and Chris Thompson are capable.

…The problem is that Kirk is terribly inaccurate, which hurts any receiver’s ability to generate positive yards after the catch. You can’t make yards after catch when the ball is thrown behind a receiver. Balls thrown behind a receiver force the receiver to slow down, adjust and focus on making the catch, all before they can do anything with the ball. Giving a receiver a ball in stride takes the thinking out of it.

See; 2012 Robert Griffin III (or even 2013 RGIII), who essentially lived off crossing routes and short post routes to Pierre Garcon.

Kirk is struggling to operate an offense your local high school QB could run at a decent level. He struggles reading defenses post snap, and too often would rather get rid of the ball than take that extra second and find a secondary option. And when he does put it all together, he forces receivers to adjust to his squirelly passes, which leads to more drops, more inefficiency, and less opportunities to score.

What the Redskins are running right now is not “Jay Gruden’s offense”; it’s a rudimentary, simplistic one, and Kirk can barely do that.

5.) The run game has been stagnant and that’s forcing the game to be placed on Kirk Cousins’ shoulders.

I wish I could say that a solid running game would alleviate all of Cousins’ woes, but Cousins is 4-3 in the seven games he’s started that the team rushes for 100 yards or more; based on the available evidence on his career, “running better” wouldn’t make a whole lot of difference. If anything, it’d echo what we already know; he’d probably break even.

The Redskins also have a stubborn, pass first offensive coordinator/head coach, who chose to make Cousins the starter. Yes, the run game has been stagnant, but it’s also been predictable, and it only takes a defense snuffing out a few runs before Gruden pulls out the screen game and the dumps off.

Because of the lack of creative thinking in the run game, and the bizarre lack of play action passing, Gruden chooses to pile more and more of the game on Cousins shoulders. Yes, the run game hasn’t been stellar, but Gruden’s knack for abandoning it after initial struggles, as well as he out right refusal to pick a starting running back and run with him, is an even bigger problem.

Gruden is, in essence, entrusting Cousins to get the job done by himself. And unfortunately for everyone, he’s not.

6.) Kirk Cousins starting means less drama and less chaos than starting RGIII.

I’d say the thing that stops drama and chaos is winning. It’s entirely possibly Griffin was and is a jerk, that he lost the locker room, and that people were sick of him. But most quarterbacks are jerks. It takes a certain amount of belief in yourself and ego and bravado to be an NFL quarterback. Players with fragile egos (see: Kirk Cousins) falter in the moments when you need the bravado and ego most.

RGIII became bigger than the team in some aspects, and that rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. His every word was breathlessly reported, whether it was worth it or not, and it did create a certain amount of animosity, even from yours truly.

But what Jay Gruden is slowly finding out, and what the local Washington press is finding out, is that it’s not RGIII who creates the news; it’s the Redskins, and their never ending fountain of dysfunction that creates the news.

This week, prominent national members of the sports media picked up on the whole “Jay Gruden refuses to criticize Kirk Cousins” story. ESPN’s Bomani Jones, Sports Illustrated’s Doug Farrar, Pro Football Talk’s Michael David Smith,Yahoo’s Frank Schwab, and a host of others have started to pick on the story.

Even as his worst, the reason that RGIII was a story often was because the Redskins organization failed in some way to direct the narrative. They’re a disorganized group who’s public relations is terrible.

It’s never been about RGIII. It’s always been about the team. The longer Kirk plays without Jay Gruden being critical, the more drama and chaos will follow.

7.) The Redskins gave up so much for RGIII, that the expectations for him are much higher than Kirk Cousins, who’s only a fourth round pick.

For starter’s, that has nothing to do with how Cousins has played, so it should have nothing to do with how both men are covered.

The amount of picks that were given up for RGIII are now officially sunk cost. They can’t go back and get the picks back, so bringing up the high expectations for him means squat; all draft picks have high expectations.

It’s why, around draft time, fans work themselves into frenzies over the 3rd round wide receiver or the 5th round guard. Every pick comes saddled with high expectations, and most picks get slammed when they fail.

RGIII didn’t ask the Redskins to trade up to get him, nor did he demand they spend all the picks it took to draft him. The “high expecations” were created for him, not by him. Is it disappointing that he hasn’t lived up to those expectations? Of course it is.

But the disappointment goes beyond his on field play, and delves into personal attacks on his character and who he is as a human being. Having high expectations of a football player does not mean you can demean and/or dehumanize the man.

Likewise, Kirk Cousins shouldn’t have less expectations put on him than any other starting quarterbacks in the league. Lots of 4th round quarterbacks never get a chance to start 16 games. No team in the NFL drafts a player in the fourth and goes “Welp, we don’t expect much from him because of where he was drafted.”

Simply shrugging one’s shoulders and saying “well the expectations are lower for Cousins” is a cop-out, a dismissal of his overall problems. He’s a starting quarterback for the Washington Redskins, a once storied franchise desperately seeking to climb it’s way to relevance, in a pretty big media market, on one of the most profitable teams in sports. The expectations for Cousins should be no less than the were for RGIII. In fact, given that Cousins was supposed to be the perfect fit for Gruden’s offense, the expectations should be hire for him.

Ultimately, the excuses made for Cousins, and the excuses for excusing the excuses made for Cousins are what really has some Redskins fans pissed off. No one seems to want to be honest about why Cousins gets covered differently, which only leads to more frustration.

At any rate, one hopes the excuses stops as the season wears on. Of course, they won’t. Which will make the rest of the year a very, very long, drawn out slog to the offseason.

]]>https://footballisstupid.wordpress.com/2015/10/22/the-excuses-made-for-kirk-cousins-starting-for-the-redskins-are-bullst-heres-why/feed/0kcclyburnThoughts and Observations on the Washington #Redskins 34-20 Loss to the New York Jetshttps://footballisstupid.wordpress.com/2015/10/19/thoughts-and-observations-on-the-washington-redskins-34-20-loss-to-the-new-york-jets/
https://footballisstupid.wordpress.com/2015/10/19/thoughts-and-observations-on-the-washington-redskins-34-20-loss-to-the-new-york-jets/#respondMon, 19 Oct 2015 17:09:27 +0000http://footballisstupid.wordpress.com/?p=286— There’s a thought among fans that teams are stacking the box against the run and daring Kirk Cousins to beat them with his arm. While it’s one way to look at the Redskins woes and at least part of the reason the run game has struggled, there are other, simpler explanations. A big topic of conversation last week was the Redskins not allowing Alfred Morris to get into the rhythm of the game and wear down defenses to help the run game succeed late. With Matt Jones inactive with a toe injury, one would think that Morris would get more run. But nope. He didn’t.

— Morris has 11 carries for 21 yards, in one of those “his average yards per carry doesn’t tell the whole story of the game” type of games. Morris wasn’t explosive, but he was steady, which has always been his M.O. That’s the nature of running outside zone; you get an ugly 2, and ugly 3, an ugly 1. And then you pop those big 20 yard runs. Running the ZBS requires an offensive coordinator to be patient enough to stick with the run even when it appears to be unproductive.

Instead, Alfred Morris got two carries in the entire second half, including a play on the goal line where neither Morris or Darrel Young was on the field.

I’d like to say I understand the fascination with getting Chris Thompson more touches in the run game, but I don’t. He’s no more productive than any of the other backs, and yet you’ll regularly see him shuffling in and out of the game. When the Redskins needed points the most, the choice was made to give the scat back touches on the goal line.

—- And again, a team that’s struggling desperately to get anything going in the run game just refuses to put Darrel Young in the game for anything more than a few token plays. Darrel Young made a great finger tip catch, and generally sticks out as a positive anytime he hits the field. But he saw only 4 snaps the entire game. Four. I understand that fullbacks aren’t in vogue in the league, but Darrel Young is NOT just an ordinary fullback. Instead of putting him on the field, however, the Redskins have chosen to stick with more two tight end sets…despite not having a blocking TE on the roster, and essentially having two inexperienced back-ups. This goes back to what I was saying about decision making and talent utilization. Jay Gruden is very regimented in his offensive thinking, and that lack of outside the box thinking means leaving talented players on the bench to do things a certain way — a way that isn’t working.

— I commend the Redskins for actually trying some different ways of running the ball yesterday, working in some pistol and toss concepts. But it still highlights just how disjointed the run game and the passing games are when the running backs are constantly shuffled depending on packages and when the play action concepts don’t seem to build off plays that worked before.

Ultimately, Jay Gruden is the decision maker here. He decides whether to run or pass. OL coach Bill Callahan chooses which run plays to call, but still, Gruden is the ultimate decided. Gruden has tried to pass the buck here on running back coach Randy Jordan as to why which running back plays when, but again; he’s the playcaller. If every assistant on offense has hand in who plays when and what play is called, then it’s really no wonder why the offense seems like such a mess; you need one voice and one vision of what the offense should be.

Maybe Kyle Shanahan spoiled Redskins fans with his “run a play to set up another play 10 plays down the road”, but all too often it feels like the Redskins offense operates on the Madden NFL 16 principle of “Eh, screw it, I’ll run this and see if it works”. There doesn’t seem to be a method to the madness; plays that work aren’t gone back to in key situations, plays that don’t work are called in crucial moments, and then there’s wacky plays like the flea flicker with Jamison Crowder to one of the least reliable receivers on the team, in the red zone, off a turnover no less. Stuff like that drives fans nuts, and the excuses are starting to run thin.

— Much was made of the Redskins defensive line this offseason, but after these last two games, wherein they’ve gotten bullied and beaten up in the run game while manufacturing zero pressure, you have to wonder what exactly the point of spending all that money to revamp it really means. Terrance Knighton has been a disappointment, and is regularly outplayed by Ricky Jean-Francois and Chris Baker. He flashes, but he’s anything but consistent. One can’t remember a play that Stephen Paea has made all season.

— Preston Smith had 17 snaps in Sunday’s game. 17 snaps on a team that struggles to get pressure but rarely blitzes. I understand him not starting, but I don’t understand how he hasn’t worked himself into a 3-down pass rush specialist kind of role.

— Bashaud Breeland had himself a day. He recovered a fumble, stripped Brandon Marshall, and produced an INT in the first half, all of which led to points. (Not touchdowns, mind you, but points). Breeland is becoming a cornerstone of this defense, and it makes you wonder why he was ever supposed to just be the third guy on the field. I love D-Hall as much as anyone else, but the fact that Breeland’s only starting because he got injured is kind of baffling. (There goes that “talent utilization” thing again…)

— And now, for the big long part about Kirk Cousins.

1.) I think the biggest turning point of Kirk Cousins’ season as a starter came last week versus the Falcons, when Jay Gruden showed that he had zero faith in Cousins’ ability to lead the team to victory, only a week after Cousins had done just that. I think Cousins played some of his best football of the season in the second half of that game, and deserved a chance to silence critics like me by leading a second potential game-winning-drive to win.

Instead, Jay Gruden called two runs and a terrible screen (note: can we just take all these terrible screen plays Jay has out of his playbook?), the Redskins settled for two field goals, and Kirk threw a pick six to end the game. I think that was effectively the death of Swaggy Kirk, and Fearful Kirk was back again on Sunday.

2.) People will harp and bang on about the interceptions, but the biggest, most persistent problem from Cousins has been his inaccuracy. Cousins has always had a trouble with squirrelly accuracy. But it tends to get worse and worse as the season wears on, and worse as his confidence drops. It’s just bad.

3.) Cousins missed several routine throws. He threw too high on an easy pass to Garcon; he underthrew Chris Thompson on a wheel route — Thompson tried adjusting and nearly injured his back. He put a screen to far out in front of Crowder, then overthrew him up the seam. The second INT was an underthrow where he couldn’t step into it, highlighting his lack of arm strength. The Jets gave up the Redskins crossers all game, but Cousins inability to lead a receiver meant the team couldn’t capitalize. Garcon gains separation from Revis and Kirk throws short into the dirt by 5 yards. Cousins footwork is bad. The first INT was an absolutely horrible throw. Despite it not resulting it sacks (which, according to Redskins fans, are worse than interceptions), Cousins is holding the ball too long. When he does throw, it’s inaccurate and he passes lack zip. You can count on one hand the amount of NFL level throws Cousins made Sunday. He’s not even making the wide open throws.

3.) And you know what? Missing DeSean Jackson and Jordan Reed and a third of his offensive line isn’t the problem. The o-line only gave up one sack all game. The run game is inconsistent, but that’s just as much a function of the bad passing game and the poor playcalling as it is anything. Having his full complement of receivers won’t help, because you don’t magically fix accuracy issues by having better plays on the field. Hard catches aren’t supposed to be routine. If you cant throw to a wide open guy on a crossing route or a slant and allow your guy to get YAC, what does it matter if you have the best offense ever out there?

What does having DeSean Jackson back really mean, if Cousins struggles to hit wide open guys deep? What good is having Jordan Reed in the line-up if he can’t take advantage of YAC because of inaccuracy? This isn’t an issue of talent anymore; it’s a matter of execution, and Kirk just can’t execute.

4.) It’s been six games now, and I don’t see why Kirk Cousins deserves to start. That’s not me advocating that RGIII starts; that’s me wondering why Colt McCoy won’t get a look. Cousins has a handful of good plays in every game, but mostly it’s just bad, bad, bad. He’s not making progress. He progressively gets worse as games and weeks and seasons wear on. The issues he had as a rookie are still issues now.

He’s thrown more INTs in less pass attempts than both the other quarterbacks on the roster, and legendary quarterbacks like Blaine Gabbert and JaMarcus Russell. His INT% is worse than Rex Grossman’s. His accuracy is terrible, and the biggest part is that his fragile confidence — the thing Jay Gruden so desperately tries to protect by refusing to lob anything looking kind of like criticism at him — looks completely shattered.

That last drive versus the Falcons was the death of Swaggy Kirk. The Kirk we have now is just going to get worse from here.

In the middle of the second half, the Redskins faced third and ten on their own 23. The Redskins lined up in an empty shotgun look, then motioned Jamison Crowder from the left slot to the right TRIPS side. The linebacker immediately walked out on Crowder, likely in anticipation of a screen, which is exactly what the Redskins ran.

It put TE Derek Carrier in the position of making a very difficult block, one which he didn’t make, as the linebacker blew past him. Crowder, however, was able to make the LB miss, cut back upfield behind some blocks, and get a first down.

The end result was a “positive play”, but the playcall itself was actually not good. Lining up in an empty look in a long down and distance is one of those situations in which most good defenses will be told to be alert for a screen. By motioning Crowder across the formation, Jay Gruden completely telegraphed the call. The defense recognized it immediately, and it was only through a great individual effort that Crowder was able to make the play work.

“We thought we could flat out the area, four strong,” Jay Gruden told reporters the next day. ”We got it earlier in the game on the third down and 15 (side note: it was third and ten), I think it was. Crowder broke it and almost scored. We thought we’d get the same look. Really their [linebacker] bossed over a little bit wider this time and our tight end couldn’t quite get out there and get him. He made a good play. But we had a lot of other good plays we could have gone to in that situation. It’s one of those things, if it worked we’re all high fiving on the sidelines, but it didn’t work and we’re all very upset at the call. You’d just like to have, instead of a one-man show, you’d like to give the quarterback a few more options. Didn’t work out.”

Going back to that play in crunch time, after it failed no less, kind of highlights everything fundamentally wrong with Jay Gruden.

As pointed out, that play didn’t work. The linebacker didn’t give the defense a different look; they gave the same look and the linebacker beat the play the same way.

Five weeks into the season, Gruden, with a chance to effectively end the game (or at least making it harder for the Falcons to win), chose to play it safe. With the run game struggling to get any sort of lift off, Gruden ran the ball twice on first and second down. He then called a play that had only been successful in the first half because his player made chicken salad out of chicken poop in a crucial situation, having to kick a field goal, and setting forward a course of events that eventually lost the game.

We can all sit back and kvetch at one another about Kirk Cousins’ throwing a pick six to seal the victory for Atlanta. We can once again scream at each other over whether or not Cousins deserves to start, whether or not there’s too many excuses made for him, or whether or not Robert Griffin III can start.

We can lament (even blame the entire loss on) the run game and/or lack thereof, we can say that the wide receivers didn’t make enough plays, we can talk about the Redskins defense allowing a rookie running back to run roughshod over them for most of the day. We can complain about all of that, and each of those components has a degree of truth to them.

But at the end of the day, what lost the game was a series of bonehead decisions from a head coach who’s lack of in game awareness is only dwarfed by his mediocre, rudimentary playcalling.

Yes, Devonte Freeman ran entirely too well, and the Redskins defense didn’t seem to have an answer to stop him. But at the end of the day, they sacked Matt Ryan three times, forced three fumbles (albeit with only one recovery), and picked him off twice, including Bashaud Breeland’s INT that could’ve effectively put the game to bed. The Falcons came into the game scoring 30 PPG; their offense only scored 19 points. They bent, but didn’t break, which has been their MO, forcing Atlanta to settle for FG attempts that they didn’t convert.

Jamison Crowder appears to be a revelation in the slot, catching all 8 of his targets for 87 yards, and giving his HC enough false bravado to think he could make something out of nothing again. Pierre Garcon couldn’t make every tough catch (and with Kirk Cousins struggling with his intermediate accuracy, tough catches are basically the only catches), but he caught some clutch passes to set up overtime and was wide open for a TD that Cousins threw too high.

The run game is a mess right now, as Kory Lichtensteiger’s play at center has regressed. But neither running back has been able to cobble together a decent head of steam; Alfred Morris only had 8 carries, Matt Jones finished with 11, and Chris Thompson had three. The Redskins run first mentality has disappeared five games into the season, and instead of searching for solutions, the answers seems to be “give Kirk more chances to make mistakes.”

The Redskins lack blocking tight ends; Derek Carrier is okay, but he’s a converted wide receiver who’s still learning this offense. Anthony McCoy isn’t much in that department either. The Redskins have one of the best fullbacks in football in Darrel Young, who can not only block in the run game, but catch passes AND pass protect. But he’s insanely under-utilized, even for a fullback; Young only played 4 snaps the entire game. Four. One of those four snaps? He made a key block on a Matt Jones TD run.

It’s true that Bill Callahan’s group has to improve their play, but it’s also true that the Redskins run game is very vanilla and very easy to figure out. By it’s nature, the Zone Blocking Scheme is kind of supposed to be that, but those plays are being called by someone who doesn’t understand how the ZBS works, and who’s run game concepts don’t veer too far from “maybe pull a linemen” and “outside zone”.

There are no toss plays, no counter plays, no trap games. There’s very few runs from shotgun, the pistol formation has disappeared from the offense even as it finds more and more uses everywhere else in the NFL, and despite running read-option with Kirk Cousins in preseason, well, let’s just say that looks more and more spiteful the longer the run game remains stagnant.

Watching Kyle Shanahan call an offense, even while it struggled in the passing game at times, versus watching Jay Gruden’s offense, is a bit like watching a talented comic book artist draw versus watching an okay-ish five-year old draw; there’s a world of difference, and even the good stuff from the five-year old is nowhere near as good as the comic book guy.

At the end of the day, this loss was on a head coach who specializes in losing games in the second half. (He’s like the anti-Joe Gibbs.) The defense did enough to keep the team in the game; they forced turnovers that didn’t get capitalized on. The offense, and the decision of the offensive coordinator and head coach, continue to be the problems.

Let’s go over those decisions, shall we?

1.) The decision to go for 2 after Matt Jones scored a touchdown in the fourth. There were 8 minutes left in the fourth quarter, and the idea already seemed to be “win this game by a field goal”. A two point conversion would’ve put the Redskins up by three, but again; there were 8 minutes left in the game. What was the plan? Hope they settle for a field goal with a bunch of time left on a clock, and hopefully get it back in time to kick the game winner?

If the Redskins kicked the extra point, the score would’ve been 14-12. Assuming that Atlanta’s drive stalled and they kicked another FG, and then the Redskins kicked a field goal, the score would be 17-15. If they converted the two point conversion, Atlanta kicked a field goal, and then the Redskins kicked a field goal, the scored would be…18-15. The Redskins didn’t take the points, which bit them in the butt when they only kicked a field goal after Breeland’s interception.

Had the Redskins simply kicked the PAT, making the score 14-12, then the ensuing field goal would’ve made the score 17-12.

Even if Atlanta had still marched down and scored a TD, making the score 18-17, a field goal wins the game, instead of taking the game into overtime.

There’s a lot of “what ifs” here, but suffice it to say, getting cute with a two-point conversion seemed less to be about “sound football strategy” and more about “the Falcons tried it so we should try it to.”

2.) Refusing to be aggressive after Bashaud Breeland’s interception. Here’s an underplayed thing that gets lost in the “Kirk Cousins threw yet another second half interception” thing; he actually started playing his best football in the fourth.

Cousins’ confidence is a roller coaster ride for sure. But he seemed to be operating with swagger and confidence. You could see it in his body language and in his throws. On the Redskins’ fourth quarter TD drive, Cousins completed passes of 10 and 26 yards to Jamison Crowder, and then a defensive pass interference call to Rashad Ross (why the hell isn’t given more chances, limited as the may be) set up the touchdown. That ball Cousins threw, by the way, was a pretty pass that absolutely would’ve been a TD if Alford hadn’t interfered.

Following the Breeland interception, Cousins got a nice checkdown off to Chris Thompson…and then two runs and the world’s most obvious screen.

The Redskins had a shot to, effectively, end the game, and Gruden balked. A touchdown makes the score 20-12. The Falcons would’ve had to drive down the field, score a touchdown, and get a two point conversion just to tie it, and assuming the Redskins had some time, a game winning field goal is still in full effect. Hell, maybe THAT is when you get cocky and go for two, which all but puts the game out of reach.

Instead, Gruden ran twice with a busted run game, then called an unsuccessful play to kick a field goal.

Maybe he got spooked by Cousins overthrowing Pierre Garcon earlier. But that does not jive with Jay Gruden’s never-ending, unbridled confidence in Cousins. Either Gruden thinks Cousins is talented enough to win in those situations, or he doesn’t. Cousins had thrown his lone TD pass of the day in the red zone to Derek Carrier on a great ball; they didn’t return to that play. They didn’t attempt a single pass into the red zone, didn’t give Pierre Garcon and Cousins a second shot to redeem their earlier misconnection, didn’t figure out a way to scheme the practically uncoverable Crowder open in the end zone.

They played conservative and it bit them in the butt.

3.) Not calling a time out when Devonte Freeman split out wide versus Will Compton. Perhaps Gruden was trying to conserve his remaining timeouts for the field goal leading to overtime that he had been desperately gameplanning to get to with most of the quarter left to play. But the second Freeman split outside versus an outside linebacker, is the second someone, anyone on the Redskins sideline should’ve taken a timeout.

It was a crazy mismatch, and the easier call ever. I’m a goof on the internet, and I knew a slant was coming, especially with Compton playing that far off.

Ultimately, that touchdown pass came off the board, but it set up another scoring attempt that drained more time off the clock. At least taking a timeout allows you more time to talk about how to defend the play and potentially helps you end the game right then and there.

4.) Calling an unsuccessful play in a critical situation. Again. Once again, we can analyze the how’s and the why’s of Cousins’ interception, but here’s a thing that should grind the gears of any Redskins fan; doing things that were unsuccessful before with the same players and expecting them to be successful without examining WHY they were unsuccessful in the first place.

Jay Gruden often rants and raves about Ryan Grant’s route running, but it rarely applies to the actual field. Last year versus the Giants, on their own 45, Jay Gruden called a stop route to Grant that was intercepted by Prince Amukamara. This week, at midfield, Cousins throw an interception to Grant on a similiar stop route against Robert Alford.

The idea of these stop routes — curls, comebacks, hooks and the like — is that the wide receiver comes fast off the line and pushes up field, trying to get the receiver to buy that they’re running a vertical route. They then stop and turn either back in or outside. Routes like this work because a corner panics that they’ll get beat deep.

…The problem is that Ryan Grant is not a deep threat kind of receiver. If you’re a 4.43 cornerlike Prince Amukamara, you’re not going to be overly concerned with Ryan Grant and his 4.62 speed. And if you ran 4.34 like Robert Alford, including an unofficial sub 4.3 time, well, you’re not gonna worry about Grant burning you at all.

Grant also isn’t particularly explosive; someone like Odell Beckham wins on his routes even without being a speedster because his first step is so quick. Ryan Grant’s ten yard split was 1.64; he’s not going to fly off the line fast enough to scare someone.

Andbutso, you have a slow, possession type receiver, against one of the fastest corners in the game. Alford is also pretty smart; the second the ball is snapped, he’s already playing the stop route. He’s not scared of being beat deep, and he knows Grant doesn’t run a lot of deep concepts, so he’s playing a route that’s going to be at the sticks.

The Redskins ran a scat (no back) protection, and Kirk Cousins slid the line protection the wrong way. That freed up a rusher. Cousins panicked and chucked it to his primary. Alford took advantage.

(As an aside, the idea put forth that an 8 yard hook route with scat protection was somehow a “hot route” is not only ridiculous, but almost certainly wrong, and even if that was somehow the case, it’d probably be the dumbest choice for a hot route, especially with Chris Thompson running a crosser underneath.)

It’s not just that Cousins threw another pick; it’s that Jay Gruden called a play that had very little chance of success, to a receiver that, despite all the praise he gets for route running, always seems to struggle to run routes that scare anyone.

Meanwhile, the speedster that spooked Alford into getting a pass interference call that set up a touchdown (Rashad Ross) sat on the sideline for the playcall. Go figure.

Those are just four crucial decisions that ultimately led to the Redskins downfall. It seems a ridiculously obvious notion, but it’s one some fans struggle with; coaching matters. The Falcons appeared to be heading towards a rebuild last season under Mike Smith; under Dan Quinn, they’re 5-0 and looking like contenders.

Joe Barry looked like the worst hire on the planet in the offseason, but he’s done his job, and the defense is starting to find it’s groove, create pressure and get turnovers. Bill Callahan’s group is still a work in progress in the run game, but they’ve kept Cousins clean in pass pro. You can see the impact of Scot’s acquisitions individually on offense.

But ultimately, a team goes as a head coach goes. Gruden’s offense has sputtered and petered out, his hand picked quarterback continues to show signs of regression, and his decision making in the head of the game leaves much, much, MUCH to be desired.

I understand why fans go to bat for Kirk Cousins. I understand people who went to bat for Joe Barry, who ask for patience for Scot McCloughan, who choose to glomb on to individual players and support them.

I do not under Jay Gruden’s supporters. He hasn’t shown much to suggest he’s getting better, or that he’s ever been good.

It’s a long season, and maybe that changes. But as of now? More dumb decisions like this will make for a longer, less successful season indeed.

]]>https://footballisstupid.wordpress.com/2015/10/14/jay-grudens-asinine-decisions-are-costing-the-improving-washington-redskins-wins/feed/0USP NFL: WASHINGTON REDSKINS AT ATLANTA FALCONS S FBN USA GAkcclyburnKirk Cousins Self Destructs in the Clutch, Will Doom the Washington Redskins As Long as He Startshttps://footballisstupid.wordpress.com/2015/09/16/kirk-cousins-self-destructs-in-the-clutch-will-doom-the-washington-redskins-as-long-as-he-starts/
https://footballisstupid.wordpress.com/2015/09/16/kirk-cousins-self-destructs-in-the-clutch-will-doom-the-washington-redskins-as-long-as-he-starts/#respondWed, 16 Sep 2015 14:32:52 +0000http://footballisstupid.wordpress.com/?p=278He is who we thought we was.

There’s something aggravating about the reaction to the Washington Redskins’ 17-10 loss to the Miami Dolphins. The talk goes that, sure, the Redskins coughed up a lead in a game they should’ve won. But they played something vaguely resembling okay-ish football for most of the game, and hung in there with a trendy pick for a playoff team. That’s something to be proud of.

To quote one of the greatest movies in cinema history, “Gag me with a spoon.”

This kind of excuse making and hedging isn’t exactly new for a team that wins as rarely as the Washington Redskins do. There’s always a search to find positives, even in games that were essentially slam dunks before getting choked away.

The Redskins want to build a tough, physical football team that runs the ball and keeps games close. Teams that due that have to play smart, disciplined football; a few stupid mistakes could end a game. A couple dumb penalties, dumb dropped interceptions, mind-boggling playcalling and clock management.

And turnovers. My oh my, the turnovers.

The reason most people wanted Kirk Cousins to start is because he’s not Robert Griffin III. They will tell you that it’s because he “moves the ball”, or is more comfortable in the offense, or doesn’t take as many hits, or any other myriad of other excuses. But the real reason is simple; he’s not RGIII. He is everything Griffin is not. And for a fanbase as burned out on RGIII as Redskins fans seem to be, that’s really all the matters.

Not being RGIII is all it really took for a half of the fanbase to hitch their collective bandwagons to Cousins. Maybe not as a savior, but as someone who is allegedly a better quarterback. “You can’t watch RGIII and tell me Kirk Cousins isn’t a better passer”, they say. And if you watch Cousins beat up future Finish Line and mall kiosk employees in preseason games, while Griffin gets annihilated and looks out of his depth, then it’s easy to why one would jump to that conclusion, even if the evidence against Cousins being a capable starter in the league in games that actually matter continues to pile up.

I don’t meant for this to devolve into yet another post pitting the two quarterbacks against each other. In all honesty I hope the team moves on from Griffin ASAP, for his sake and theirs. This is about Cousins; particularly, what he is, and what he isn’t.
What he isn’t, is a quarterback capable of winning games in the NFL.

At least not on his own. Not when the game is on the line and the pressure mounts and he has to make that play, and he has to protect the ball, and he has to keep his focus and confidence and his poise. When the Redskins need Cousins the most, he crumbles.

This is not conjuncture. It’s not talking out of one’s rear end. It’s supported and backed by fact. Games are won and lost in the second half. Re-watch the New York Giants versus the Dallas Cowboys, and it becomes clear how a few dumb mistakes here and there can drastically alter the outcome of games.

The Redskins are not built to be in a shootout with anyone. If they’re going to win, they need to do it by keeping the game close, and then putting it away when it matters. To do that, they need a quarterback who can be a closer, who can throw strikes and keep the team out of trouble, keep the chains moving and chew clock.

Cousins can’t put a game away. In fact, he’ll throw games away, more often than not.

Kirk Cousins has thrown 19 touchdowns and 21 interceptions in his career. Of his 21 interceptions, 17 have come in the second half. Of those 17 second half interceptions, 12 have come in the fourth quarter.

His first half passer rating is 95.1. His second half passer rating plummets to 60.9, a more than thirty point drop. His passer rating in the fourth quarter? An abysmal 57.3.

It’d be tempting to say that those numbers are a result of Cousins trailing thinks to a notoriously leaky defense, but it’s not entirely the case. Breaking down his losses from last year; Cousins appeared in 6 games, and only went without a pick in two of them. (And one of those games was against the notoriously leaky Jaguars defense in a blow out win). Versus Philadelphia, Cousins threw an interception with 7:34 to go in the fourth quarter, allowing the Eagles to score what would be the deciding field goal in the game.

Versus the New York Giants, the Redskins opened the second half well, scoring to bring the Redskins within ten points. After the defense forced a three and out, Cousins threw his first of four second half interceptions. The Redskins defense responded by forcing a turnover of their own, with Keenan Robinson intercepting Eli Manning. Cousins then threw his second interception. This time the defense broke, and it was 31-14.

After the offense stalled, the Redskins defense again forced a three and out for the offense, only for Kirk to throw his third interception. Again, the Giants scored, effectively putting the game out of reach. But not before Cousins threw one more interception.

If you’re paying attention, you know how this goes. After somehow keeping to close versus the Seahawks (thanks to three touchdowns getting called back), Cousins faced the Cardinals. The story was the same; with a ten point differential in the second half, Cousins threw his first pick. The Redskins defense held. Kirk threw his second pick on the next drive. The defense held again. A positive occurred when Cousins actually put together a drive to get the game within 3 after throwing a touchdown to Garcon, but after the Redskins defense held yet again, Cousins threw his third, and worst, interception.

He got benched after throwing another inception in the first half the following week.

But none of this is a new phenomenon. People have argued that Cousins simply hasn’t played enough games to form an accurate opinion on him. To that I say, Cousins’ first ever interception came in the fourth quarter of a close game versus the Atlanta Falcons, when Cousins entered the game in relief of an injured Griffin. He threw two picks and one touchdown just in that game.

“Okay, but he was a rookie in that game! What about Baltimore! What about Cleveland!”

Fair enough. But Kirk threw an interception in the Browns game as well (albeit in the first quarter, and he played well the rest of the game).

Cousins threw six second half interceptions in 2013, despite only starting two games. He threw a pick six in relief of Griffin versus the Denver Broncos (though to be fair, Griffin coughed up two interceptions in the game before exiting due to injury.) He threw two second half interceptions in his start versus the Falcons, one of which (naturally) helped to put the game away. “Throwing picks in the second half of close games” is just what Cousins does; it’d be funny if it wasn’t aggravating, and if a host of people weren’t trying to convince themselves and the world that Cousins was something more than what he is.

Even Rex Grossman, that infamous, loveable turnover magnet, has his 60 interceptions more evenly split (33 to 27) between halves.

It’s not just that Cousins throws interceptions; it’s that he throws interceptions at the worst possible times. It’s part of why the idea that Cousins throwing interceptions was more favorable than RGIII get sacked was so bonkers; if RGIII gets sacked, it tends to be spread through the game. Even Griffin’s 23 interceptions are split even between halves. All of Cousins turnovers are bunched into the most important part of the game, and almost all of them contribute to close games getting put away early.

Cousins threw a miserable interception early in Sunday’s game, but bounced back to lead a touchdown drive. After his second interception, Cousins couldn’t get back on track, and the Redskins lost another close game.

Turnovers are game losers. There’s a direct link between wins and losses and turnovers; if you throw all of your interceptions when you need to play your cleanest, most mistake free football, you’re going to lose a lot.

Cousins played a “C” game for him on Sunday, but his “C” games quickly devolve into “F” games. When you ask anyone to pick names of quarterbacks who threw so many interceptions earlier and then turn their career around, all you really get as answers are future Hall of Famers like Peyton Manning. (For the record, Manning threw 28 interceptions as a rookie, and has never had a 20+ interception season again.) Cousins is not that guy.

The “quick decision making” that means he doesn’t get sacked is the result of reading a defense pre-snap, and not adjusting post-snap. He’s a quarterback that’s only productive in as much as he knows where the ball is supposed to go, and he’ll throw the ball there 8 times out of 10, regardless of the coverage. He “understands” the offense, but he doesn’t understand the offense. He can likely tell you what coverage a defense is in and where the ball is designed to go on any given play, but he can’t process information quickly enough to move on to a different progression.

Far too often, Cousins first read is his only read. And if a well coached, smart defensive back keys in on the play, then it’s basically a loss. That’s what happened on Cousins’ second interception of the afternoon, a play that has been weirdly pinned on Pierre Garcon.

Bryce McCain sees the corner route to Garcon coming, is patient, and makes a great play. Cousins had decided to throw that ball regardless of the coverage; if he had been patient, he would’ve seen the DB playing the route. Instead, Cousins underthrew the ball, and threw it inside. In slow motion, it’s kind of amazing that Garcon manages to get a hand on it, and he actually does almost manage to knock it out of McCain’s hands before he can pin it to his shoulder.

But somehow, the play has been pinned on Garcon for not outbodying a guy who knew the route was coming, and not the quarterback he threw it without a hesitation.

That is what Cousins is. It’s easy to be successful in a preseason game, when no one is game planning or watching film and the pressure isn’t on. But the NFL has enough tape on Cousins to know what he can and can’t do. And if you can’t trust Kirk to deliver for you in the clutch, when you know that your football team isn’t very goody, then just why in the hell is he starting anyway?

Jay Gruden called an extremely conservative game last week, almost as if he was trying to prevent Cousins from making the big mistake. He did it anyway, twice.

The Redskins next face the St. Louis Rams. The Rams boast a defensive front that would keep the best offensive linemen up at night. Cousins is going to need more than his quick release to win this game, particularly if the Redskins can’t get the running game going early. One expects another super conservative game plan.

What I don’t expect is a “W”, because Cousins has never shown himself capable of reacting well to the big moments when he has to be bigger than himself. Even with Rex Grossman, as crazy as it sounds, I never quite felt like we were out of it as long as we kept the game close.

With Cousins, he’s earned none of that faith. Until he learns to focus and cancel out the noise and make smart decisions when it counts the most, the Redskins will be in for a long, turnover prone season, full of missed opportunities. And it’ll become more and more apparent that Cousins is, at best, a functional back-up in the NFL, and at worse, not consistent or mentally tough enough to play in the NFL at all.

Only days after head coach Jay Gruden declared the Washington Redskins’ “Kirk’s team”, the team has allegedly decided to keep the guy they just benched, after a week of hell that saw the Redskins increasingly look incapable of even the most basic functions of running a sports franchise, much less picking a quarterback.

The most immediate thing that should give you pause is Darlington’s assertion that not only will RGIII still be on the team, but that he’ll be Kirk’s back-up, while presumably Colt McCoy remains the number three. This seems unwise for a whole host of reasons, the least of which being Kirk’s uneven play as the starter before.

If Kirk Cousins opens the season and struggles just a little bit (and with defensive fronts like the Miami D and St. Louis to start the season, not to mention two division games in back to back weeks, that seems likely), the calls for RGIII from his most ardent fans will begin in earnest. If Kirk has a bad string of games period, the cries to start RGIII will come.

You can’t declare the team “Kirk’s team”, and then have Kirk looking behind his back at the bench the entire season. If you want to know why Kirk Cousins struggled when given the opportunity to essentially take the job last season, that’s partially it; RGIII being on the bench, recovering from injury, caused Cousins to press. Instead of making the plays that were there, he tried to make every play. When he made a mistake, it destroyed his confidence, because every mistake he made meant another chance RGIII would get a shot and he wouldn’t be given a chance again.

For all the faults with Cousins, the best chance he had was being in a low stakes situation where he didn’t have to worry about the back-up breathing down his neck, looking for his job. Now, he once again has that added pressure, and Cousins has not performed well under that pressure.

The Redskins have pitted these two young QBs against each other for years now, and it’s negatively effected both. For Griffin, one of the mitigating factors in him rushing back from injury and trying to become a pocket passer was the fear that Cousins might take his job. The day of RGIII’s first press conference in Washington, he already had to answers questions about Cousins.

These two don’t make each other better; they make each other more and more paranoid, more and more desperate to show the other one up, and less able to think about the task in front of them than the guy behind him. It’s asinine, counter-productive and rage-inducing that this thing with the quarterbacks will be still be an on-going situation, unless (please oh please oh please, big money big money, no whammies, no whammies) a sweetheart trade for RGIII’s services pops up that they literally can’t refuse.

Not to mention that from a monetary standpoint, it makes no sense. Sure, Griffin counts $6.7 mil versus the cap this season, and that’s not an easy pill to swallow from a contract standpoint. But, the team could’ve dealt with that cap hit, and owed him nothing in 2016 after rescinding the fifth year option.

By keeping Griffin, not only do they incur that cap hit in 2015, but they also further the risk of having to keep RGIII on for another year if he were to get injured again.

Redskins fans are tired. It’s easy to say “all this goes away if Kirk Cousins wins”, but there’s little reason to think the Redskins are going to morph into a good team right now. They still have questions on the offensive line and the secondary, questions that have plagued them for years that they’ve never managed to find the solution to. They schedule looks light, but they always seem to play down to the level of their competition.

This move does not speak well of how they truly feel about Kirk Cousins. In fact, it seems to say that they’re not thrilled with either quarterback, and are simply waiting for one to step up. Which would’ve been great, say, in training camp, if the Redskins hadn’t prematurely named Griffin the starter and had actually opened a quarterback competition. But they didn’t, presumably because that would’ve been too easy.

Doing things the proper way in Washington is never easy. Here, general manager Scot McCloughan had the opportunity to make his first tough decision of his regime, and he flinched. One can say he’s giving Gruden enough rope to hang himself with, but that’s the opposite of how business should be done.

The best way to see what Gruden is made of is to give him his kind of guys and let him do things his way, and then if he fails, you have all the more justification for getting rid of him. Letting Jay Gruden live free or die hard with Kirk Cousins and Colt McCoy solved that issue.

But having Gruden declare it to be “Kirk’s team”, only to days later insert the de-facto face of the franchise as the back-up, smacks of not being brave enough to make that tough call. It’s a hedge, a bluff. If the idea is to let Gruden float around dying and then fire him at the bye, then that’s actively detrimental to the team. You shouldn’t be planning for the coach to show his ass.

For example, part of the reason Mike Shanahan is still a fixture around here is because Snyder’s interference meant that Shanahan has a convenient excuse for while he was an utter failure in Washington. If they had truly given Shanahan what he wanted and he failed, he doesn’t have any clout. Instead, he’s saved his career by blaming his failings on the team hierarchy, and furthermore, it’s hard to prove him wrong.

All you do by keeping RGIII is keep the kid from developing, keep a QB the coach doesn’t want to develop, and make the (current) starting quarterback all the more paranoid about losing his spot. It’s a clusterfrak of bad decisions in a franchise that is supposed to be changing the culture, but still clings to it’s stupid, political BS.

The best thing would’ve been for the Redskins and RGIII to part ways, to ride with Kirk, and let the chips fall where they may. Now, they get to sit around the table, looking at their cards, wondering who’s going to fold first.

This team couldn’t make a good decision if you took two index cards, labeled one “Good Decision” and one “Bad Decision”, and then told them to pick “Good Decision” otherwise you’d cut their hand off. They’d just go around handless, fumbling in the dark for an answer that’s right in front of their faces.

There’s basically no way the Washington Redskins can keep RGIII on the roster, right? The fact is that Jay Gruden has declared this “Kirk’s team”, but it’s hard for it to be “Kirk’s team” when you have RGIII on the bench, especially in the event Cousins struggles.

The Redskins would do well to move RGIII for whatever value they can get, or to eat the loss and cut him, and roll with Cousins and McCoy as their guys. It opens up a roster space, it (hopefully) cuts down on potential drama, and let’s Gruden focus on trying to improve these two QBs without the strain of having to, ya know, actually do his job and come up with an offense that suits all players and not just a couple.

How I yearn for the day when I never have to predict Shawn Lauvao being on the 53-man roster…

At any rate, the starting five has been set for most of training camp. Scherff and Moses form a young right side of the line, but should grow together with time. LeRib has looked solid if unspectacular at back-up center and can play boy guard spots in a pinch, Arie’s raw but has flashed. Long makes it onto the roster as he’s developing, those he’s looked uneven. Compton makes it to round out the back-up tackle situation, though that bares watching as the season wears on.

Tight Ends(3): Jordan Reed, Derek Carrier, Je’Ron Hamm

This list seems kind of like a gimme. Reed can be productive when he’s healthy; the problem is actually KEEPING him healthy. Derek Carrier was traded for and presents some upside, and in my brief glimpses is a solid blocker. Hamm makes it because he kind of has to at this point.

First: There’s basically no way Alfred Morris gets traded. In spite of maybe not being the most physical talented back, he’s still the most experienced and most productive. On top of that, it’s even less likely that anyone wants to trade for a running back with 876 carries on his legs who’s also not known to be scheme diverse, who’s production has gone down each of the last three years, who’s also on the last year of his deal.

Jones provides a powerful thumper who has a little (okay, a lot) more wiggle than Morris does between the tackles. Thompson has shown out, averaging 5 yards a carry through preseason, while also being a surprisingly good pass blocker. Darrel Young is the NFL’s least appreciated fullback. (Feed. Young. More.) Trey Williams is the odd man out, this year’s Lache Seastrunk, only actually better and not kind of a jerk.

Here’s the part where you wished you could move on from some of these free agents and put the young guys in. Pierre Garcon and Andre Roberts count big against the cap, and if you cut RGIII, you effectively can’t cut either of them. Crowder and Grant easily get spots, but Rashad Ross has reached up and grabbed the brass ring with his play. He might not get tons of touches, but he’s earned his way onto the roster moreso than his most immediate competition Evan Spencer, who may be a solid special teamer, but hasn’t made enough plays there or in the passing game to justify a roster spot just yet.

One wonders if the fascination with keeping Kedric Golston around despite him not being productive will continue this season, but it shouldn’t. There’s clearly more talented players ahead of him, in what is a deep, deep defensive line rotation. Scot McCloughan set out to revamp the d-line and he did; all his free agents acquisitions are obviously going to make it, as will Big Swaggy Chris Baker and Frank Kearse, who provide more than adequate relief for all of them.

A lot of debate has been over whether Murphy or Smith should start, but for now, I’d relegate Smith to a third down pass rusher role and let Murphy handle the run game and edge setting duties. Jackson Jeffcoat and Houston Bates both made plays this preseason, providing solid depth, and Bates can have a really good role on special teams.

The top three linebackers here shouldn’t shock anyone; Robinson is the future of the defense and Riley has looked solid, with defensive coordinator Joe Barry speaking highly of him. Will Compton was a solid back-up last season and plays teams. Plummer has been a better all-around player than Martrell Spraight, who’s still raw and needs time to be developed.

Going thin at corner for the second year in a row is a tricky proposition, but it also seems kind of unavoidable given the rest of the roster layout. D-Hall and Culliver are pencilled in as starters with Breeland and Amerson as back-ups. Maybe I just didn’t pay enough attention to the corner play, but the only corner that regularly stood out to me was Quinton Dunbar, who is nowhere near ready to be called upon in game action.

Duke, Goldson and Johnson are freebies, even though Johnson didn’t make a preseason impression either way. Trenton Robinson has been a dependable back-up for a couple years now, and Kyshoen Jarrett has certainly flashed enough to justify his role as well.

Specialist(3): Nick Sundberg, Tress Way, Kai Forbath

Nick Sundberg is the toughest, “THE” Tress Way is the best, and Kobra Kai just makes kicks.

The Washington Redskins are no strangers to dysfunction. Hell, at this point, their dysfunction is so dysfunctional, teams like the New York Jets and Oakland Raiders would be totally within their rights to point out how out wack they are.

The simple issue of “Does your starting quarterback have a concussion?” has sparked off yet another week of dopey, asinine, and ultimately unnecessary media coverage. Did no one talk to Robert Griffin III and say “Hey, maybe you should just agree with the coach this one time, please.” We all know it’s unlikely that Griffin was concussed, and that he was likely put through the concussion protocol just to keep him from talking to the media. But could that not be accurately communicated?

Then, if that weren’t enough, after practicing for an entire week in the hot sun, the Redskins cleared RGIII to play…only to unclear him just hours later, setting the table for golden boy Kirk Cousins to play the penultimate preseason game, the “dress rehearsal” that’s as close to the regular season as possible.

Robert Griffin III needs a change of scenery. Badly.

However the Baltimore Ravens’ preseason game goes (never tell the Redskins how unimportant the preseason is), it’s obvious at this point that the marriage between Jay Gruden and Robert Griffin III isn’t even a marriage. These two aren’t on the same page, and they aren’t even reading the same book. Not only are they not reading the same book, but RGIII is reading non-fiction and Jay Gruden is reading “See Spot Run”. That the team forced this duo to be passive-aggressively annoyed with another for one more season is bad enough.

But it goes further beyond just Griffin’s relationship with Gruden. It’s his relationship with the organization as a whole. Him being on the team seems detrimental to him and to the team. The man once thought to be the savior of the team has become an albatross around it’s neck, causing the already broken foundation to become more and more oft-kilter.

Griffin, professionally and personally, is not the same player he was in 2012. In 2012, Griffin was an electrifying, charismatic young man, who in spite of people saying he ran a “gimmick” offense, showed more than enough understanding of NFL passing concepts. He was energetic and engaged with the media and seemed more than happy to answer each question, and personalize all of those answers.

On the field, Griffin can be a mess. Sometimes, he flashes the promise of that 2012 season and looks like the first round pick; others he looks like he’s never been on an NFL field before. It’s frustrating to see a player who once made playing football look so easy make the very same act look like a Herculean effort. It hasn’t always been his fault, but too often, it has been. ANd often, he has been unwilling to accept his role, when everything fails and he seems like the biggest reason why there’s been a problem.

The shots he takes in the pocket aren’t always his fault, but the man bumps like Dolph Ziggler. Lots of quarterbacks get hit and get sacked; few seem so skilled at making each one look so bad. Some quarterbacks know when to take the loss; they know when there’s no shot at a play and they start going down before a player can take him down.

Robert Griffin III believes that there’s a chance to make every play, and that’s his downfall. He once talked about how his father would have him practice broken plays, and how some of his favorite players were men like Ken “The Snake” Stabler and Roger Staubach, magicians who could seemingly make something out of nothing. His father would make RGIII watch those guys, wanting him to emulate that style.

With all due respect to those players, that was a different time. There weren’t 250 pound linebackers who ran a 4.6 and hit like a MACK truck in the 1970s. There are defensive linemen that could run that. A quarterback in today’s NFL knows when to hold them and when to fold them. Griffin, for whatever reason, never seems capable of understanding that.

He’s a guy who projects a lot of confidence, who is adept at creating grand slogans, who could be confused for an egomaniac if it wasn’t for his utter lack of confidence on the field. Whereas Kirk Cousins’ lack of confidence results in interceptions and turnovers, Griffin’s results in him simply forgetting what he is — and what he isn’t — capable of.

I’ve often said that RGIII has The Yips. For seemingly no reason, after his knee injury, he lost the plot. Maybe it’s because he demanded to run a more pro-style offense, and then found himself out of his depths. A group of people conspired to coddle him and protect him and told him what he needed to hear, and then he got out there with no training camp, coming off his second catastrophic knee injury, and found that no, he wasn’t ready to run a pro-style offense.

And it’s been an uphill battle ever since to prove that he can, which leads to him pressing, which leads to him being scared of making a mistake, and when he does make a mistake, he isn’t eager to be accountable for said mistake. It’s a mess. He’s both overconfident and underconfident, and he’s still being handled with kid gloves by an organization more concerned with making friends and marketing and Harvest Festivals (Bruce Allen will never leave this down).

Griffin needs to leave Washington if he ever wants to have a chance for success.

For one, he needs a little adversity. Not media created adversity, wherein he says something and hundreds of blog post are written about it. (“RGIII CLAIMS BLUE KOOL-AID IS BETTER THAN RED KOOL-AID, IS A SELFISH SELF OBSESSED SON OF A MONKEY’S UNCLE!”) I mean legit adversity.

He needs to go to a place where he’ll clearly have to beat out another guy in order to start. Not a place that promises he’ll start, not a place that has an “open competition”. He needs to go to a place with an established starter who the team isn’t ready to move from, but there’s a teeny bit of wiggle room.

He’s never really had to compete for a starting job. He was the starter in high school, he was the unquestioned starter at Baylor, and was immediately named the starter in Washington. Despite two really bad seasons, there’s never been a shot for anyone to dethrone him in camp, and on some level, he must know that.

Tom Brady is the greatest of all time, and he’s still driven to be the best because he’s afraid of losing his job. As long as Griffin is here, he’ll never have to deal with that fear. Dan Snyder won’t allow it.

He needs to go to a team where he’ll have to improve not just as a player, but as a teammate. A place where he’s not the face of the franchise, but just one of the guys. Griffin is a self-described loner, and I’m sure most quarterbacks could be described as that. But while you don’t need everyone on a team to like you, you need everyone to respect you, and you need to be able to relate to everyone. Being a back-up might force RGIII to learn that, without the pressure to start.

It’s like Rex Grossman. (Don’t laugh.) Rex Grossman not be a starting quarterback in the NFL, but you’d be hard pressed to find teammates who don’t like him, or at least don’t respect him. That leads to a team feeling confident when he steps on the football team, whether the larger world thinks he can win or not.

He also needs to go to a place with a coach that is a real teacher of the game. Jay Gruden is not that. Jay Gruden was done with Robert Griffin III and trying to convince the powers that be to open a competition for Kirk Cousins to start just a few weeks into 2014 training camp. Gruden was a coach clearly trying to cover his own backside, who saw two guys (Cousins and McCoy) more adept at running his offense, both that came with less baggage.

Griffin needs someone who has seen what he can do, and is willing to take the time to get him back there. A coach who knows it won’t happen overnight, and furthermore, will not pressure him to try and be the franchise QB before he is ready.

A team like Kansas City, for example. A tenured head coach who has had a knack for helping develop and craft young quarterbacks. The Chiefs seem very happy with Alex Smith, who will likely have another solid season as their starting quarterback. There’s no pressure for him to start immediately; he can sit, learn, and if he outworks him, there’s the slightest of chances he’ll get a crack at the job.

Or — and hear me out on this one — reuniting with Kyle Shanahan in Atlanta. The biggest casualty in the war between Mike Shanahan and Robert Griffin III/Dan Snyder was Kyle. The two teamed together to form an offense that seemed almost unstoppable, until personal pride and dumb professional politics scrapped it before Griffin was ready. In Atlanta, Griffin would get to learn behind a vested start (Matt Ryan), get to be in the meeting room with a former mentor (Rex Grossman), rejoin an offense he thrived in, and be a better back-up than anything they have there, with a better overall team.

The bottom line is that Griffin’s Redskins career is, effectively, over. Continuing it at this point is pointless, asinine, cruel and just plain ol’ dumb. Griffin will never be a success as long as he’s here; the expectations are too high, the hype always too much, the organization always too unwilling to do things the right way and hire people who are willing to tell Daniel Snyder to just sit in his offense and not touch anything.

It’s hard to say goodbye to yesterday. But for the benefit of all involved, it might be much better to say goodbye, then say hello ever again.